Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/136

LANDSCAPE PAINTING jeweler out of his element. Personally, I am inclined to think that both of these great masters were in the wrong, but that Millet came nearer to the truth than Stevens. It is quite certain, at any rate, that his instinct was correct in so far as it applied to his own work. Preciosity of surface could only detract from such a picture as the "Sower" or the "Shepherdess," while it would be a positive offence in a picture such as the "Man with a Hoe," Millet, of course, was too great and true an artist to fall into this error. His pictures give evidence of an infallible instinct for the eternal fitness of things, and as he was concerned always with the thing to be said, he used every resource at his command to reinforce the dominant idea of the work, suppressing every thing which might distract the attention from the central motive. The epic of labor [100]